“This book demands to be read. Alix divulges things you’re not supposed to say but that should be said. . . . This book is profound, and it feels like a gut punch (in the best way possible) page after page.”

—PRISCA DORCAS MOJICA RODRÍGUEZ, author of Tías and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

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“Just as America owes the undocumented an enormous debt, we are forever indebted to Alix Dick and Antero Garcia for writing this powerful, moving, and brave account.”

—REECE JONES, author of White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall

ABOUT THE BOOK

An inhumane math pervades this country: even as our government extracts labor—and, often, taxes—from undocumented workers, it excludes these same workers from our social safety net and uses a militarized Border Control to threaten them at every turn. As a result, these essential workers struggle to get their basic needs met. Healthcare, education, freedom of association, freedom of movement, the ability to drive to work without looking for ICE in the rearview mirror—for most undocumented immigrants, these simple things are out of reach. And as the undocumented author and activist Alix Dick shows in these pages, returning to one’s home country is usually not a safe option.

More than a decade ago, Alix's family found themselves in the crosshairs of cartel violence in their home state of Sinaloa, Mexico. When they were targeted by assassins, she and her siblings fled to the United States, where they were safe from the cartels but faced new dangers from American xenophobia. Now, in fiery and determined prose, she shares her story of being labeled undocumented in the U.S. Many of the scenes in her story are difficult yet unforgettable: escaping from a relationship in which her partner threatened to report her to immigration; experiencing wage theft; getting root canals done in an underground dental clinic. But she has had moments of triumph, too: founding her own nonprofit; creating films that tell important truths; and working with her co-author Dr. Antero Garcia to tell her story in this book. As they tally the costs of undocumented life, they present a final bill of what is owed to the undocumented community, flipping the mainstream narrative about the economics of immigration on its head.

Alix Dick is an artist and a researcher living in Los Angeles. Her work as a producer and filmmaker has screened at film festivals across the globe. She co-edits La Cuenta, which centers the voices and perspec tives of individuals labeled undocumented in the US.

Antero Garcia is a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and is the incoming president of the National Council of Teachers of English. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books about schooling in America. He co-edits La Cuenta with Alix and lives in Pasadena, California.